The permits are for a term of six years.
Woodside's G-8-AP is in the Browse Basin and expires in August, 2028. It covers 3,476 square kilometres across 42 blocks and is between retention leases WA-28-R and WA-31-R.
It lies directly on top of its Browse fields, which hold 10% CO2.
The project to send gas 900 kilometres to the North West Shelf facility to use as LNG backfill has been paused since 2020 but since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and changing world circumstances, has been back on the table.
CEO Meg O'Neill told a press conference at the APPEA conference in May CCS would be a part of the project from the get go.
The company must undertake subsurface geoscience and engineering studies by 2025 and a risk assessment for legacy wells in the area. It must acquire 250sq.km of new 3D seismic between 2025 and 2026 at an estimated cost of $6.5 million and complete well design and planning by 2028.
Inpex takes its G-7-AP, which is in the Bonaparte Basin and expires in August 2028. It is spread across 27,500sq.km and covers 348 blocks.
Inpex is operator but shares the block with Woodside and France's TotalEnergies. In addition to seismic acquisition the partners must drill two appraisal wells in the six-year work program at a cost of an estimated $105 million by 2025.
The total work program is estimated to cost $159 million and includes large amounts of geological and reservoir modelling.
The permit is close to the Petrel Sub-basin, the Bayu-Undan fields, the Barossa field and Inpex's own Ichthys.
The company has pledged to build a CCS hub in Darwin to capture emissions and also suggested it may join Santos' ambitious Bayu Undan proposition, which would use the depleted reservoirs to store up to 10 million tonnes a year of CO2 some 560 kilometres offshore Darwin.
